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No Bias, Yes Bull

The other day I played a leading role in a Michelle Malkin syndicated column about liberal media bias. Her complaint provides an interesting glimpse into the feverish workings of the paranoid mind of the far right.

Malkin begins by citing a recent Washington Post article about Barack Obama's fanatical exercise routine. Malkin describes the reporter, Eli Saslow (who she calls Zaslow) as "adoring" and "smitten," which is the sort of hyperbole you'd expect in this kind of thing. Then comes the gotcha. Malkin acidly notes, "the doughy, McDonald's-chomping, coffee-guzzling members of the White House press corps couldn't see the merits of White House exercise over the past eight years," and then, redundantly, adds, "the same reporters who so greatly admire Obama's lithe figure derided Bush for his training schedule."

Her main example of this hypocrisy is a 2005 column I wrote for the Los Angeles Times. I'll get to that column in a second. First I should point out that I am not and never have been a member of the White House press corps, nor am I a reporter at all. I'm an opinion columnist. To cite a column I wrote as evidence of liberal media bias makes exactly as much sense as citing a Michelle Malkin column as evidence of conservative media bias...

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--Jonathan Chait